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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232159">Roots</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric'>hopeless_eccentric</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Penumbra Podcast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Gen, Math and Science Metaphors, Mathematics, Personal Growth, Plants, STEM GET IT LIKE PLANTS, ah the simple wisdom of just thinking about jet sikuliaq, anyway this is ab 1.2k of me defending my jet has plants hc with a BAT, give my man jet some love, just a study of jet and his plants and the simple pleasures of both math and gardening, this was like yoga to write it cleared my head</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:07:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,154</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232159</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a simple joy, Jet thought, in tending to his garden.</p><p>Never once in his entire life had he stopped to consider that Jet Sikuliaq of all people, a man notorious for monikers and crimes that still stained the hands he used to check for holes in the leaves of his ailing lilies, would be the kind of man to take pride in his garden. However, Jet supposed there were a great many things he would have never guessed about himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Roots</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey all!! this was a lot of fun to write. thinkin ab mistah sikuliaq is just. good for the brain.</p><p>Content warning for blood mention</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was a simple joy, Jet thought, in tending to his garden.</p><p>Never once in his entire life had he stopped to consider that Jet Sikuliaq of all people, a man notorious for monikers and crimes that still stained the hands he used to check for holes in the leaves of his ailing lilies, would be the kind of man to take pride in his garden. However, Jet supposed there were a great many things he would have never guessed about himself.</p><p>To Jet, tending to his plants and tending to the various needs of the Carte Blanche and the Ruby 7 weren’t particularly different in effect, even if they were different in practice. </p><p>Mathematics held a certain stability to them. The right equations could be trusted to work every time if one was meticulous enough. Numbers were simple and stable and worked in the context of specific rules. Perhaps machines did not always respond positively to his attempts to fix them, but they too adhered to certain patterns. They were physical, and as such, could not escape the laws applying to all physical things.</p><p>He had become accustomed to this labor after years of it, and for that, he was grateful. He did not miss the amount of time he spent attempting to become adept with his tools. The simple pleasures of hearing the right pieces click into place and the healthy purr of a healthy engine were his rewards for years of muddling through the confusion of an amateur.</p><p>He supposed, had he been older, muddling would not quite have been the correct word. His earliest days with a wrench in hand were often spent snarling at the machines when they did not bend to a will too human to be understood by such peaceful simplicities as gears and wires. A lack of knowledge was a roadblock to possibility in the days where he had yet to know far more than any person ever should.</p><p>Jet knew not to waste his thoughts dwelling on parts of the past that could not be changed or used as a wrench of sorts to try and alter his mindset the way he would tend to an engine. However, he did not doubt, had he begun his foray into mechanics at a later stage of his life, it would have felt far more like gardening.</p><p>He knew, sensibly, that any science had a certain set of rules that would work every single time. However, tending to plants, especially in such an environment as the hyper-regulated one of the Carte Blanche, meant memorizing different rules and practices and rituals for every species of plant that crawled its way across his desk.</p><p>The first plant had been a cactus, a small one contained to a single pot that Buddy had bought for him as a spur of the moment present from a planet where the crew stopped for minor repairs. After he had come to memorize the conditions of light and heat and water that were best for the plant, he bought another, feeling oddly like it looked far too lonely relegated to a corner of his strictly neat workspace.</p><p>Two plants became three, and after enough time that his quarters began to feel less like a pause between his hours in other spots of the ship and more like a home in themselves, three plants morphed into sprawling vines crawling into their favorite patches of light and dark.</p><p>He had to admit, he had not mastered every detail of gardening, but the process of experimentation to find these rules was a simple joy in itself. Jet had spent far too many years of his life as an expert in one field or another, regardless of how much he appreciated or regretted his skills in each asset. There was something novel in being able to make mistakes.</p><p>The majority of his plants were yielding to an unsteady hand. He had only lost a small handful of them, categorizing and experimenting with their environments when he replanted and tried again. He kept his notes in a journal he had meant to buy for his experiments with the Ruby 7, tracking their growth in columns meant for fuel efficiency.</p><p>He enjoyed learning the rules that would make gardening as simple as basic mechanics. He enjoyed being wrong and being forced to guess again. He enjoyed experimenting, crunching the numbers on something that was but a mere pastime for most others.</p><p>Rita had offered to look up the answers to some of his tests. However, he denied her every time, for an easy solution would be too short and far less gratifying than an answer gleaned from the process of simple work.</p><p>There were other fruits of his labors as well. The quantity of vines stretching around a room that had begun to tinge green from the way a certain ivy had crawled over a lamp made the air fresh in a manner the rest of the ship could not manage. The smell of leaves and the gentle buzz of the grow lights made good company over a cup of Jovian tea. </p><p>Perhaps the varying scents of the flowers and the soil did not always pair well with the flavor. However, their companionship was welcome anyway. Perhaps his passions did not always agree so easily as the growth of plants and the consistency of numbers. That did not mean he enjoyed them any less.</p><p>His favorite result of his labors had to be the sting of pride in his chest whenever a plant that had been struggling one day wilted slightly less the next or when a once dying flower managed to host a single bloom.</p><p>Jet had not been the one to give these seeds life. However, he had been the one to tend to that life, seeing it through to a comfortable survival under his watchful eye.</p><p>Perhaps the hands that tended to the soil and checked the spots on the leaves had been bloodied at some point. At times, he could not convince himself they would ever be rid of that stain. However, there was comfort in knowing he had fostered life to some extent.</p><p>His was not a search for penance, but rather, a search for peace.</p><p>Jet was not enough of an optimist to assume the remainder of his life would be peaceful. He would miss many opportunities to do the right thing if he pursued a course of pacifism in the company of a family that did not do the same. However, from the way the plants had made their happy homes in their respective corners of his quarters, soon to be the captain’s quarters, if Buddy would have her way, he could assume there would be longevity to this particular pastime, and by extent, this particular pursuit of peace.</p><p>After a life of transience, he supposed it was comforting to have put down roots.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>bless :,) </p><p>Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below and don't forget to stay awesome gamers!!</p><p>Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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